Afford Anything - How to Stop Being Your Own Worst Enemy, with Clark Howard

Episode Date: October 17, 2016

#47: New York Times bestseller, radio and television personality, Clark Howard is known as a personal finance expert, that title doesn't tell the whole story. He started reading stock tables when he was in fifth grade. He began investing in real estate at the age of 22. He created his own travel agency business at the age of 25. And he became financially independent and retired at age 31. However, after four years of living on the beach, he was ready to get back to work. He wanted to help people take control of their money and, consequently, their lives. Clark believes that money is the result of the discipline you bring into your life. Unfortunately, most people want to take the path of least resistance when it comes to achieving their goals. That's why so many people fail. Clark says that the most common mistake he sees his listeners make is getting in their own way. People give up before they've started and play the victim. That's not the path to success - financial or otherwise. So, how can you stop standing in the way of your own success? In this episode, we cover that, as well as:     •    Clark's journey to financial independence     •    Why he chose to pursue this audacious goal     •    Why he felt ready to jump back into work after enjoying four years of retirement     •    Why we behave the way we do when it comes to achieving goals     •    What money means, and why it matters     •    How to control your reaction to the inevitable setbacks we experience in life     •    Why everyone must live beneath their means and spend less than they earn to achieve any financial goal     •    What the future of money holds There were so many takeaways in this episode, I couldn't list them all. Clark is brilliant and offers some amazing insights into the financial industry, as well as business lessons he's learned throughout his years of being an entrepreneur and managing teams. Enjoy! Resources Mentioned: Clark.com Podcast
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You can afford anything but not everything. So what's important to you? What decisions are you going to make and how will your life be impacted by those choices? My name is Paula Pant, host of the Afford Anything podcast, where we explore those questions in-depth through interviews with fascinating guests. And today's guest delivers. When Clark Howard was 25 years old, he started a company, a travel agency, based in the Metro Atlanta area. By the time he was 31, he had grown that company large enough that he could sell it

and retire on the proceeds. So he moved to a beach in Florida, became a beach bum, and basically planned to be retired for the rest of his life. He reached financial independence at an extremely early age. But then he decided to come out of retirement in order to help people not get ripped off. Yeah, he's considered. a quote-unquote personal finance expert, but really his forte is as a consumer advocate. He is not shy about putting forth strongly worded opinions, both pro and con, about various

companies, products, and anything that would affect consumers. He doesn't take personal product sponsorships or endorsements. Clark has a lot of integrity, and that's one of the many reasons that I wanted to talk to him in today's episode. Yes, we talk about his personal journey, financial independence, but we go beyond that. We talk about what money means, why it matters, and what's going to happen with the future of money? Because you know what? Here's the thing.

Yeah, Clark's famous. He hosts a nationally syndicated radio show. His website, Clark.com, has had 54 million views last year alone, and this year it's on track to exceed that. He's written multiple New York Times bestselling books. But when you meet him, as I did, because we did this interview face-to-face, you will see, hopefully, as I did, that this is a guy who really cares about you. He wants to make sure that people aren't getting ripped off because, frankly, your ability to save more and direct your money in the way that you want it hinges on a transparent system.

And that's one of many thoughts that he has. The guy is just brilliant. So I'm not going to belabor this any longer. Let's get to the interview. Ladies and gentlemen, Clark Howard. Clark, in 1987, when you were 31 years old, you retired for the first time. Yeah. It took me longer than I expected. When I was a kid, I had set the goal of retiring when I was 30. And I used to spout off as a teenager that I was going to retire when I was 30. And adults in particular would look at me like, you're so naive. you're such an idiot. But I was determined that that was something I was going to do. I didn't know what I was going to do with the rest of my life, but I wanted to be what for me retirement meant being financially independent, and I missed it by a year. So I guess that makes me a failure, right? Yes, an absolute failure. I can't believe I'm even talking to you. I know, I know. But I had a lot of luck that made it possible to retire so young. I had started,

doing real estate investing when I was 22. I bought my first foreclosure. I had learned from my father, who was a stock investor, how the stock market worked. When I was in elementary school, I learned how to read what then were called stock tables. You know, there was no internet. There were no computers. And you read paper tables on stocks. And I learned to do that when I was in the fifth grade. And so I had learned very young the fundamentals of investing. I got into the real estate when I was very young. And then I started my own company when I was 25. And so I just had all these things that just worked.

Did you trade individual stocks then? A little bit. I was much more into looking for small companies. Back then there was no way to find small small. companies like we have today. And so you didn't have to worry about people hunting around all competing for the same potential investments. And so back then it was good fundamental digging. And I would travel around the country looking at companies that were emerging and trying to decide if they were things that would be worth putting any money into.

And so I was doing things that you could not do today. You owned a travel agency and you were traveling around the country searching for under value stocks. Traveling for free to go see companies, yes. And so I was investing in my own business and I was taking cash. It was throwing off and investing in other businesses as well. And then had my real estate and everything just kind of worked. Why were you so motivated? You know, who knows? I mean, one thing that had affected me and made me from the get-go really into living on less than what you make is my dad got fired from his job that he'd worked at for 29 years when I was a teenager.

I thought that my parents had plenty of money. They had plenty of possessions, but they didn't have plenty of money. And when my dad lost his job, suddenly they were living on fumes, and I was trying to scramble to figure out how I was going to get through college. And so I learned right then it's never what you make. It's what you don't spend that actually matters. And that was a core principle of how I lived my life then and how I lived my life through to today. I'm almost double the age I was when I retired the first time. Mm-hmm. Why retirement in particular? Because it strikes me that you have to be very ambitious and work very hard to retire early. And yet, retirement on the surface almost seems like the opposite of ambition. Okay, so you are so right. You are completely right. All right. So there I went from working so much with my own business and the other things I was doing that I would get up,

in the morning. And a lot of times I wouldn't even remember what time a year it was. I was so focused on work. I was all work and no play. And I burned myself out. So it was really lucky somebody came a long one to buy my company. And when I sold my business, I went to the beach. I moved to the beach, Pontevira, Florida, which is on the east coast of Florida. And I was fine doing nothing. I mean, I went from going 100% to 0%. And I really got into doing biathlon stuff, biking and swimming. And that became my new activity. But I dialed back so much, especially mentally.

Because, you know, when you have your own business, at least for me, it was hard sleeping. You got a lot of anxiety with it, worried about meeting payroll, worried about dealing with overhead and I went from that, you know, living my 20s that way, to at 31, it's like, so what? What am I going to do now? So I don't know why the whole retire by 30 was so big to me. It may have been all about the freedom that comes with financial independence, not necessarily the idea of never working again. I remember when I first retired, my father said to me, what's going to become of you? You're going to shrivel up. If you don't have any purpose in life, any goals in life, you'll be a parasite. And it's like, a parasite. Wait a minute, I just sold my

business. I got all this money. I don't ever have to work again and I'm a parasite. Was it what you expected? The experience of retirement, did you get bored? Did you enjoy? it? I loved it. I loved it. And eventually, I found myself getting involved in things again. A lot of volunteer activities. I started helping out at a company that was kind of midlife and couldn't quite figure things out. And I helped them with their business and then moved on my way. I guess today we'd call that consulting, but it actually was real. And I just started picking things like, or things were picking me. Like the way I ended up doing the radio was I got a call out of the blue from a radio station that asked if I'd be a guest one day. And I ended up in

broadcasting because of that one guest appearance, not the normal path. How long did you spend in retirement before you decided to come out of it and start a second career? To really start working was four years. I was piddling around. I was piddling around. I was pitiling around. I was piddling around doing stuff, but I had enough to keep me busy, but I wanted the freedom to keep traveling. I love travel, just like you do. And being able to say, oh, there's a deal. I'm going here. I'm going there. I went all over the world in those four years. Went to every continent except Antarctica. And I still haven't been to Antarctica, by the way. Do you plan to? Antarctica? I have not and I have no plans. So the reason I won't go to Antarctica is,

because the waves when you first get on the ship, the first like day and a half are these massive waves. And I look at those videos on YouTube and I'm like, I'm not doing that. So it's because I'm a wimp that I haven't been there. So that's my one continent I'm not been to. But for me, having that freedom to do this, that, and the other, probably what would have gone on for an indeterminate period of time. And then I got an offer to do radio and TV. And I was like, wow, that sounds really interesting. And I went to TV school.

The TV station sent me to TV school to teach me the basics of being on camera. And I started doing a three-hour-a-day radio show. And then I was working again. So then I was back into real life. But I was ready after four years. Was it a difficult decision to reenter the workforce? No. No, you know, when it's time, it's time.

And I never had to go in the cubicle that you so like to talk about. So no cubicle farms for me. Do you ever miss those days? Do you miss the days of having absolutely nothing to do? I miss the freedom of now having everybody tell me what to do. Everyone in the staff telling me you need to do this, you need to do that, you need to go here, you need to take this trip, whatever. I do miss having the freedom and I somewhat resent the regimentation of what I have to do. Because, you know, with the schedule of producing a live radio show and doing all the TV I do,

there's a restriction on freedom that comes with that. Right. But obviously, if I didn't want to do it, I wouldn't do it. So why do you do it? I think because I'm like you. I want to teach. I want to inspire. You know, that I know that when I don't have the desire to do that anymore,

that's when it's time for me to go. I don't need the money. So it really is about having this opportunity to let people know that they do have more power than they realize in their lives, that they can take more control. If there's something that they want to do, they really need to set about doing it. people spend so much time in their lives, especially now, feeling like victims. You know, we deal with very large impersonal institutions, government, business, whatever, and people feel like they don't have options.

I don't buy that. And so for me, it's really important to be there to encourage people and give them the tools so that they can take more control of their own lives. It's not just about dollars and cents. I was going to ask a few more questions about your retirement, but I actually, this is a really good transition. So I'm going to run with this. Let's do it. You'd like to give people the tools to be more empowered, to kind of take charge of their own lives.

What, in your experience, because you, I assume, have interacted with many, many members of your audience and heard from many listeners. What are the main things that hold people back? Part of the human experience, I mean, we're imperfect beings, is people conspire against themselves. You know, that people may have the best of intentions, but if they're not focused enough on the target, on the goal, they get off course. Sometimes things happen to you. You know, if somebody gets hit by a drunk driver, you didn't do anything wrong. And sometimes life acts like a drunk driver. But most of the time, it's up to you and me to deal with the occasional adversity that happens and overcome it and build towards whatever the goal is.

So I'm very patient with people who are straying from the target. But you've got to think of life as a journey and how are you going to get to where you want to be. And people are going to have reversals in their lives. They're going to have, you know, somebody could be married and spouse walks out on them. And all the plans you had and the finances that were part of making that happen, suddenly that doesn't work anymore. Or you may be in a job that you got laid off from and it sets you back. So I know life happens because you can't price your life for perfection.

You have to be prepared for those reversals and come up with your new path. I don't think I answered your question, though. So, yes, you need to be prepared for all of the adversity that life might hand you. Do people like to think about that? No, people like to draw a narrative of their lives that's a path of least resistance. And so that's why, because people aren't psychologically prepared for when the unexpected happens, That's why some people, the unexpected, really sets them back. I have an example for you.

You know, the hottest movie right now is this Sully movie about the guy who set the plane down in the Hudson River. Oh, yes. And it's popular culture right now. It's the thing, this movie. And I remember after that crash, and he sets the plane down, there was an interview. It might have been 60 minutes, 20, 20, whatever,

with the three flight attendants that were on that plane. They interview each of them separately. And two of them are like, this was the greatest thing. You know, it was fantastic. You know, we got a second chance of life and all that. And then the third flight attendant was completely like her life was over. And it was horrible and everything was terrible. And I could have died in there and water was coming in the plane and blah, blah, blah.

And I look at that as like the perfect example of what happens to people in life. Everybody runs into obstacles. It's the real test of how you handle yourself, the character you possess, is how do you handle that unexpected obstacle? In that case, two of those women were like, hey, I'm still here. This is great. By all normal circumstances, I am dead and I'm here with you. And the third one was her life, as far as she knew it, she had survived, but her life was over. because she'd never get over this.

And I find that that's so much a part of human nature. There are people who are defined by the obstacles that present in their lives, and there are those that are strengthened by how they handle those obstacles. And, you know, we're in a space where we both talk about money all the time. But money is almost like a proxy or a result of who you are, the character you have, and the discipline that you're, you bring into your own life. And so there are people who, who when they, because all of us have, well, you like to cuss,

I'll say all of us have that happens. Nobody ever used to me to say that. It's what you do when shit happens that is the real test of what you become. How do you then help people become more resilient? How do you help your audience develop that resilience? Well, part of it is through the examples they hear of other people. You know, like if somebody calls me and they want to talk to me because they want to brag because they faced a problem that they could not overcome with debt levels, let's say credit

card debt. I had a caller last week who had $45,000 in credit card debt four years ago, and they were calling me because they were about to make their last payment and they were going to be credit card debt free. and they talked about how hopeless their life had felt and how they felt like they had no options and they then got to it and they started paying on them and it got easier and easier.

And they wanted to brag and at the same time they wanted to inspire others. And so I love that. I love it when somebody does overcome adversity because that's the best example you can give somebody else because people sometimes feel like I have no credibility because I carry no debt, I've led this charmed existence, and who am I to say, well, this is what you can do or should do? It's so much better when somebody who's been there done that can share their story and inspire others.

What would you say to people who, when they see those stories of others, peers who have succeeded, they point to all of the specific details about that person's life and say, well, that person had X specific detail, therefore they're not like me. How do you handle that? Well, excuses are crap. I mean, really, because when you start making excuses about why, well, I'm different than every circumstance is a little different. How you accumulated real estate is different than how I accumulated real estate.

The eras were different. The circumstances were different. So you can't look at somebody else's situation and start saying why that doesn't apply to you. Instead, you just learn from the generalities of it, not the specifics of it. Don't shut yourself down saying, well, I can't do that because, well, interest rates are this now and they were that then. Or, well, that was a real estate bust. And now we're not in a bust anymore. In fact, I got to tell you, one of the most brilliant things that you have said is this idea of if real estate is too expensive where you live, why don't you invest where it's more affordable?

And you think about it at base. That is such a simple and smart concept. But people tend to eat their own cooking. Wherever they are, that's where they look at is their zone of possibilities. And one of the things that's important is that if your current zone of possibilities in your life doesn't make it where you can succeed, maybe you need to change your zone. Well, thank you. Is that scary to people?

Yeah, a lot of, I mean, not everybody's going to be able to become financially independent. You know, you can only grow the pie overall so much. It's really almost a Darwinian process of who, is going to choose to be the individual who creates financial space and independence and freedom in their lives and who doesn't. And so it is a winnowing of the herd and it's a natural selection process. The thing is, there are lots of people who talk a good game. It's executing it and sticking to it over a long period of time. because one of the things that I found fascinating

that you talked about a 20-year horizon. Well, many people look at 20 years as like it might as well be 1,000, that's an eternity. But the reality is you're living your life during that time, and it's not like your life goes on hold for that time period. So you build it up in little blocks. Baby steps get you to the goal. And it's all a matter of staying on track,

staying on course. What happens if during that 20-year time span your goal changes? That's fine. You've created the freedom for your goals to change with what you've already accomplished to that point. How can a person know the difference between a goal truly changing versus themselves just losing motivation and finding an excuse? Well, I would say if you fall off the wagon where you're no longer living on less than what you make, that's the excuse. If you stay on the path of living beneath your means, then it's not an excuse. It's a real reset time in your life about what you're trying to accomplish. But you aren't going to accomplish any goals of freedom and independence if you're not continually living on less than what you make.

I mean, regardless of what you're trying to accomplish, if it's going to live in Thailand with the elephants, or it's going to work in Haiti at an orphanage, or it's going to scale every big mountain peak in the world, whatever it is. The goal can change, but how you get to the goal remains the same. Are there any other particular audience stories or listener stories that stand out to you, people who've achieved big goals, ambitious and unconventional? Yeah, I'd say the thing that has been a consistent theme all through the years I've been on the air, which is 29 because I'm an old guy, is the people who share their stories about how they were mega savers and were able to go on a path of early retirement or freedom or whatever it is

they wanted in their 40s. It seems if somebody is a max saver, a mega saver, a super saver, whichever term you use, that there's a deviation with it, but most often it means somewhere a mid-40s is when somebody can bag work pretty financially, safely, and live, even if they live an extraordinary lifespan, they'll still be okay financially. Because in order to get there to where you can achieve financial independence at, let's say, 45, just for argument's sake, you have to live roughly on half of what you make. So you've already set up your life that typically you're going to be a debt-free person by your mid-40s. You're living at a much lower voltage lifestyle than you could otherwise. And you've created enough stream of income that it will carry you

essentially into infinity. And so people tell their own story many different ways how they got there. But one of the things that I find that's so great when people call in to talk about how they got there is almost never is it the way I did. Which the way I did was as an entrepreneur. And a lot of people think you only can do that if you win the lottery or you hit a big number as an entrepreneur. But the reality is most people do it and it can be very ordinary professions. They don't have to be high income earners. It's all about the mentality of living on so much less than what you make.

And it's not deprivation. and it's not like there's some song about it. I don't remember what the song is, but it's about how somebody sacrificed, sacrifice, and then they died before they retired or something. It's one of those angsty kind of songs. Don't know if it's Atlanta's Morissette or who it was, because she's always whining in her songs.

But anyway, it's, the idea is not to deprive yourself because we're not depriving ourselves in a modern developed society when we live on less than what we make, it's really just showing real strength, character strength, because if you can deal with Juanitis, you're creating more power in your life.

The theme of developing strength, developing resilience seems to just keep re-emerging throughout this conversation. Yeah, I guess I'm a one-note guy on that. Because I do think that's so, I think that's so important, because so often people do lose sight of the target and they lose the discipline. It is a core concept when you're going to be successful financially that you have to keep that determination.

Right. And it seems to me as though that's a foundation that can be applied throughout your life. Exactly. You know, it's the foundation of financial success in multiple ways. Right. And not just money, not just the stuff we're talking about in life, you know, having that intestinal fortitude is key. It's nice to read about personal finance information, but don't you ever want to get an answer to a specific question about your own life? Well, guess what? NerdWallet has a cool app where you can talk to a financial advisor one-on-one through your phone, and it's available at no.

cost to you. You can download this at nerd.me. me slash Paula. Again, that is nerd-n-e-r-d. Dot me-M-E-E-slash Paula, P-A-U-L-A. Head over there to find the answers to your personal, complex financial questions, all with no jargon, no pressure, just real financial advisors, having a conversation with you through an app on your phone. How cool is that? Check it out. at nerd.me slash paula. How do you organize your time, since time is also a limited resource, how do you, and you've developed a lot of projects and scaled them and built teams,

how have you personally been able to make the decisions about how you're going to spend the ultimate limited resource, which are your minutes and hours? Well, ultimately for me, it's all about building what I call the loose-tight ship. where you make it clear to everybody what we're trying to accomplish and you hire people who you trust to make good decisions and you don't sit over them. You let them work independently.

And the people that work on the team are really the ones doing the heavy lifting, not me. I mean, I do work a lot. But it's more about having a philosophy of having people that have a similar energy, a similar desire to teach, and in their own lives, or living their lives, is ones where they're creating that independence. So I believe that you have to give people extreme freedom

in order for them to be creative. And everybody has to have the right to fail. And I've got to tell you something. I'm old enough that when I'm in meetings where we're talking, talking about the various digital initiatives we do. Yeah. I feel like I'm a little kid surrounded by adults. I have no idea what they're talking about most of the time.

And people will be looking for me to nod and give approval for what they want to do because they're spending my money. And I'm like, I don't know. I don't understand. You're here to make those decisions. Just make the best decision you can. Has your team put you on Snapchat yet? No.

No, in fact, I am completely clueless. I am 100% into being continually experimental. And the way people are doing things now is completely different than how they'll be done in five years. Yeah. And if you look 10 years out, it would be completely, completely different. So often people get to where, well, this is what I do and this is how I do it, and they have trouble with change. I adore change.

I embrace it. and I make it clear to everybody on the team that that's what I'm about. As far as how I spend my time, I have a real regimentation in my life, and I'll give you the boring details about what I do. But when I get up in the morning, get the kids up, get them ready for school, and then I go waste $4 on a bagel and a Coke Zero in the morning. I so thought you were about to say the cliche latte. No way. Okay, so I've never had a cup of coffee in my life.

Really? Wow. Okay. But you're not opposed to caffeine because you have Coke zero. Well, you know, I grew up in the South. When I came out of my mom's womb, I was born in a Baptist hospital. So they were sprinkling Coke on me when I came out because it was Atlanta. And, you know, from when I was young, you were given Coca-Cola to drink when I was like probably still in diapers. In the bottle. Absolutely. And so I had a lifelong, I've had a lifelong habit. And I can tell you if artificial sweeteners kill you, I am so going to be in medical research.

Because see, I'm not going to pay to have my body buried or cremated. I'm donating to medical science. So there's no cost for my family. And they may find all kinds of things in me from drinking all those chemicals. Anyway, I digress. So I have my bagel. Then I come back and I get on the elliptical, like clockwork. Every morning I'm on the elliptical.

And I do, depending on the day, there are 33 minutes or 66 minutes. You are very regiment. The program is 33 minutes. And I read actual physical newspapers. I start every day with the Financial Times of London. And I read that. And then next I read the Wall Street Journal. Then I read the New York Times.

And then I start reading. papers on my phone. If I'm, you know, if I'm doing a long enough workout and I've read those, I read those. I'm looking for things to put on the radio show. And I'm looking for new thoughts, new, and I find so much more from the English-speaking European press than I do from ours, because they still are really investing in reporting in Europe, which we're really not anymore. So I read a real lefty paper every day, The Guardian, which is a very leftist British paper, than the Financial Times, which is like the best financial newspaper in the world. And so I read, I read, I read, I read, and online I must read 25 newspapers or magazines a day. And then I go in,

we have what we call a pre-show meeting, but it's everybody works in the digital, TV producer, radio producers are off-air center because we answer calls off the air 45 hours a week. It's something that we've done since 1993 and it's free where people can talk to somebody. We find out what trends, what things people are calling in about, how people are getting ripped off, and we figure out how we're going to do what we call slot the show

for the radio show. Well, we're going to start each half hour with, you know, what that content's going to be. And we build a show around content that's always designed to be actionable. We never try to talk about something that's just like, by the way, you should know, blah, blah, blah. Unless it's something like the Wells Fargo criminal behavior or whatever where I'll just rail on them. But even that I make actionable because what are you doing with the giant monster megabank anyway? You know, you should be at a credit union.

You should be an online bank, a local bank, and you shouldn't be with a giant monster megabank. So I can give a call to action out of that. But everything is about giving information people can use in their lives and then giving them an assignment to act on that information. So that's pretty much my day until we finish radio and TV, and then I go home again to the kids and my wife. For someone who is retired, my day is incredibly regimented now.

And it sounds like you would have it no other way. Well, you know, I probably, if I had grown up in the era of initials, because we didn't have any such thing, you know, like ADD, ADHD, what's the one about compulsive obsessive? OCD. I mean, we had no initials in my era. But I bet if I'd grown up in this era, I'd have like a whole list of initials.

You'd be out without soup. Yeah, I'd be taking all these pills and stuff. Excellent. So I think I'd deal with all those things by regimentation. It just goes to show the people who often can retire tend to be the people who don't. Well, I'm ready to, you know, at some point not work so much. But I'm not ready to do nothing. Yeah.

Well, I don't want to take up too much of your time, so I'm going to, I guess, start wrapping it up. Are there any... Can I tell you one thing? Sure, absolutely. If you have your own business, the most important thing is to take care of the people that work for you. And I think that's one of the most overlooked things that you always operate where you're romancing the people that work for you, so they'll romance your customer. and what I mean by that is I've always been into making sure that people aren't told they're appreciated, but they're truly showed they're appreciated.

And I do some things that are really over the top. Like we do an annual staff trip, and we go wherever in the world goes on sale each year. Our last one is to Thailand and Hong Kong, and our next one is to Australia. and it's just wherever is a bargain, that's where we go. But I think it's really important for that corporatey thing they call team building. But it's not really about that. It's about showing people in an over-the-top kind of way that they are valued, that they're appreciated. And all too often, it's not just corporate America, that people are like, hey, what does she want?

I'm giving her a job. You know, that's not it. You know, you want somebody to feel invested in what you do. When I had my business in my 20s, I used to parcel out to my employees 25% of our profits each year. And every year the employees knew that they were going to get their profit sharing check if we were profitable. And there were years that the profit sharing check would end up being, like half of somebody's annual salary. And then other years, they'd get a pitiful amount

because we didn't make much money. Right. But the effort that people would put in, knowing they had a stake in the game, was totally different. And I think that one thing that people miss that's one of the most important things about success and business

is that the more your employees are your partners and what you're doing, the more successful you're going to be. Capitalism works best with enlightened self-interest. When you can align your interests in being an owner with the employees and the customers, and they're all on a parallel track, you look at the most successful companies over time.

They always do that. Has there ever been a time that you have tried to do that, but the result has not been what you intended? You mean by doing something is a reward for? Yeah, a time that you've done something with the intention of aligning your interest, your employee's interests, your customer's interests. But the result just kind of backfired. Well, I'd say not in the frame that you're saying. There are a lot of things we've tried that either work for a while and then didn't anymore or didn't work at all.

You know, I am extremely experimental. I'll give you an example. All right, so there used to be a machine that was very popular in the world called a fax machine. Oh, yes, I remember those. And we put a lot of resources, and this was in the, I guess the 90s, a lot of resources into having newsletters that we sent by fax. We poured a lot of money into it, and they were doing very well. And then they did very well all of a sudden until they didn't anymore. when something called AOL came along and had this dial-upy thing that people could do,

and it went like, bam, went from having a very successful business to one that was a money loser. I mean, just like you turned off a light switch. And then, like, look at AOL. What happened to them? I don't know. I guess they've merged with Time Warner, and I actually have no idea what they're doing these days. I think they're owned by Verizon now or something. I don't even know. I have no idea. Anyway, I mean, but they're like a trivia question. They were like the most powerful company there was out there. So I'd say that sometimes the failure is that you stay with something that works too long and you don't respond to the marketplace. And then the marketplace will teach you.

Right. So stay changing. Stay adapting. Yeah. And everybody talks about how change is accelerating. I don't really buy that. We have always had changed through human history. And truthfully, if you look back, there was far more dramatic change 100 years ago than there is now. Things that mattered so much more in electricity, the car, the airplane, the ability to communicate. Radio came just a few years from right now. So those were, you'd want to talk about real change. Those were truly revolutionary changes.

Changes they we have are evolutionary, but people have a tendency not to recognize changes that's happening, and you do so at your peril. Final question. What changes do you anticipate on the horizon? In any field, whether it's radio or in the financial sector or literally anything. You could tell me about changes in the gummy worm industry for all I care, you know, anything that you see in the future. I think the way money works is going to change in ways we can't even anticipate yet.

And one thing that I've been really surprised that has not happened in the United States that's happening very heavily in the third world is people using their cell phones as a form of payment, but not like the lame Apple pay or Google pay or Samsung pay. I'm talking about where the phone itself becomes the form of payment. In Africa, people use, believe it or not, minutes, because they still buy cell phone minutes by the minute as a form of payment. And so you go to a store and something will be priced as 22 minutes. And you give the merchant 22 minutes. It's become an alternative money. That makes sense in a place that has unstable currency.

Right. And if you think about today how little faith people have in government-issue currency, the person who figures out the next form of payment is going to win the Nobel Prize in economics, and they're also probably going to end up being really rich. Wow. Yeah, that in a country that might have rampant runaway inflation like Zimbabwe, absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Minutes are far more stable. That makes sense. And in spite of the anti-trade feeling in the country right now, whether we like it or not, we're in a worldwide economy now. And being able to pay money to people anywhere in the world and not having to worry about that they're using Remembe or they're using Euros or they're using RAND or whatever,

that that whole concept is going to ultimately be so antiquated. You think there might be a more global? a more global platform. There will be a completely a more global platform. Interesting. And you know what? A lot of 20-somethings

get that through and through because they use Venmo. Yes, I use Venmo all the time. All right. So Venmo is not truly where I'm talking about, but Venmo, for people who use it, it's like, oh, how does Venmo you that? Yeah.

And it becomes so much easier than saying, oh, I have no money. I've got to go to an ATM. I got to get money. I mean, the concept of money and how it moves and how we use it is going to radically transform. All right. Well, we will leave it there. Thank you so much, Clark. Sure. Where can the listeners find you if they would like to know more? Clark.com. We have a podcast that we put out several days a week, and I have a radio show, and I do TV in various markets in the country. It just depends where you live if you got me on the local news.

Excellent. And we will link to all of those in the show notes. Great. Thank you, Clark. Thanks. This is fun. Wow, that was incredible. Thank you so much, Clark Howard, for your insight into why we behave the way in which we do.

So what have we learned from this interview? Let's recap. First, as Clark mentioned, people are often their own worst enemy. many times if you have a particular goal, the biggest obstacle that is standing in between you and that goal is yourself. Part of the human experience, I mean, we're imperfect beings, is people conspire against themselves.

You know, that people may have the best of intentions, but if they're not focused enough on the target, on the goal, they get off course. And Clark is right. People do conspire against themselves. We all do it. It's normal to stand in the way of your own success. But just because something is normal does not mean it's good.

So that's key takeaway number one. Be aware of the times when you might be your own obstacle. Key takeaway number two? You can't always control what happens to you, but you can control your response to that situation. Clark gave the example of three flight attendants who were all on the same airplane when that airplane almost crashed. It had a successful unsuccessful landing, we should just say. It wasn't a planned landing, but the flight attendants all survived. And two of them were grateful for the fact that they lived through it, while one of them was sad and angry about the trauma that she had just been put through.

Now, both of those are valid responses, and I would presume that anyone on that flight probably feels a mix of both of those emotions, but which one are you going to focus on? There was an interview with the three flight attendants that were on that plane. Two of them are like, this was the greatest thing. You know, it was fantastic. You know, we got a second chance of life. And then the third flight attendant was like her life was over. And I look at that as like the perfect. example of what happens to people in life. Everybody runs into obstacles. It's the real test of how you handle yourself, the character you possess is how do you handle that unexpected obstacle. So that is the second key takeaway. You decide your response to the situation. Key takeaway number three is that if you want to accomplish any goals, regardless of what that. That goal is, you must live beneath your means. You aren't going to accomplish any goals of freedom and independence if you're not continually living on less than what you make.

It doesn't matter if you want to go ride elephants in Thailand or simply have a comfortable life where you don't have to stay up late at night worrying about the bills. Regardless of the goal itself, regardless of its audacity or its weirdness or its normalcy or anything. else, the common thread that unites us all is the need to spend less than we earn or earn more than we spend. You can look at it either way, but ultimately what matters is that gap between what you bring in and what flows out. Those are three of the many takeaways that we learned from this conversation with Clark Howard. I'm also impressed at his morning routine, 33 minutes or 66 minutes every day reading the financial media. You can learn a lot by committing to a habit and doing it consistently.

And Clark is a great example of that. If you would like show notes from today's episode, which cover some of these key takeaways, please head to podcast.offordanything.com. Again, those show notes are available at podcast. Dot afford anything.com, where you can also sign up for email updates about upcoming episodes. If you enjoyed this episode, please head to iTunes and leave us a review. In fact, I would like to take this time to thank some of you who have recently reviewed this show because these reviews are so helpful. So I want to thank a listener by the name of XH at who says,

What Sets Afford Anything Apart from Other Financial Podcasts are the interviews. Thank you. I'm glad to hear that. And it's thanks to you. it's thanks to reviews like this that allow me to book these interviews with these amazing guests. Another reviewer named JP1569 says, love the new format, great guests, much more robust discussion than pure finance. Not real estate focused any longer.

Awesome. Yes. Thank you, Jay. That means I am doing my job. This is exactly what I was going for. A reviewer by the name of Nick Believes says Paula offers very well-rounded financial and life advice. and is well worth the 45 to 60 minute investment. You know, thank you for mentioning that

because you can spend your time anywhere. You can spend your time listening to any podcast. And there are countless options to choose from. So the fact that you have decided to spend this time with me, I'm flattered. I'm honored. And I try to make every episode worthy of your time because your time is valuable.

And my goal is the every episode, respects that. So thank you again for these amazing iTunes reviews. If you haven't written a review yet, please go to iTunes, write us a review, and let us know what you think. I really appreciate the fact that you're spending your time with us here today, and I will see you next week. This is Paula Pant from the Afford Anything podcast. Signing off.